


Defy Frost and Storm

by Rubynye



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Backstory, Canon Backstory, Gen, Kink Meme, M/M, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo remembers the Fell Winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defy Frost and Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Hanover Winter Song](http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/hanover_winter_song.htm)

"Pay him no mind," Bofur whispered conspiratorially as Bilbo glared after Thorin's receding back and kicked the grass they walked upon. "He carries the weight of the mountain in his mustache, that's why he never smiles."

Bilbo slung his narrow-eyed gaze sidelong, taking in Bofur's hopeful smile for a heartbeat, for three, until he had to give in and smile back. "I suppose he is our leader," Bilbo said, more to his roused temper than to Bofur, "but he thinks I'm soft, and I--"

Bofur hoisted his thick eyebrows, then swiftly poked Bilbo in his well-padded ribs, and Bilbo meant to growl as he batted Bofur's hand away but it emerged rather more of a squeal. "Yes, yes," he grumped, swatting at the laughing Bofur with his walking stick, "Your point is made, master dwarf. Still, I've known hardship in my time, or how would I know the true value of comfort? I remember the Fell Winter." Bilbo's voice hushed on its own. "I remember the white wolves and the howling cold."

Bofur nodded, abruptly solemn. "I remember as well. But weren't you very young?"

"Not a child, though. I had just come into my tweenhood that last September." Bofur merely looked at him, so Bilbo explained. "A hobbit's tweens last from twenty to their coming of age at thirty-three. Tweens are full grown in body, or at least finishing up that last handspan, but they haven't yet developed their hobbit-sense, they're flighty and foolish."

"Oh ho, like Fili and Kili." Bofur waved towards further down the trail where those two lads were currently racing to see who could walk faster on his hands.

"Exactly." Bilbo rolled his eyes. "And when I was that young and foolish…" The memories hoved in round him, he looked ahead and saw snow instead of sunshine. "I had fallen, foolishly and Tookishly, in love." With Hildifons Chubb, who defied his name by being tall and square, who was usually rather serious but whose infrequent smiles could light a hall.

Bofur gave Bilbo a gentle shoulder-pat. "What befell?"

"Hunger, dire hunger. We shared all we had, stretching as long as we could, and Gandalf brought aid when he might, but even he's just one wizard, so by late February we'd run out of food." Bilbo recalled the cramping ache in his belly, his parents' sunken cheeks, as they huddled together singing against the biting cold. "We'd taken to staying indoors and underground to hide from the wolves, and even dug more tunnels, but now someone needed to go out gathering what could be found, to hunt the sleepless squirrels and sparrows. Someone quick and foolishly fearless: in a word, tweens."

"Such as you, mighty squirrel-killer." Bofur's eyes twinkled as when Bilbo flourished his walking stick at him.

"See if I let Bombur give you any more of the meat I catch! But I was telling a tale." And here Hildy came into it, bright-eyed and strong in Bilbo's mind's eye. "Hildy was the lad I had my eye upon, the sort of lad you want to follow. He called together several of us to go out. Only by day, always together, armed with what weapons we might bring. Hildy had a bow and arrows and a knife in his belt, and I had my fearsome rocks."

"Fearsome indeed," Bofur agreed warmly. "One day the squirrels will surely rise up to take revenge."

Bilbo had to laugh with him, feeling the present moment around him again, warm dry grass beneath his feet and Bofur's broad warm hand upon his shoulder. But the tale wasn't yet told. "I should never have gone, truly. I was barely a tween, still two inches from my height."

"Which is considerable," Bofur put in, laughing hearteningly as he ducked away from Bilbo's swipe.

Having failed to score a hit, Bilbo snorted. "Well, those inches mattered to me, and to my parents, who wouldn't have risked their only child if it could've been helped. But it couldn't, so off I went with the other lads, and did my best to catch Hildy's eye and of course to find us some food. That's when I truly learned how many nuts and roots and even berries could be found in the winter woods, and how far we couldn't make it go with so many mouths to feed." Bilbo remembered the weaning faunts who sickened and died, the gammers and gaffers who gently refused to be fed, the red eyes and nighttime weeping as family after family suffered its losses.

Beside him Bofur breathed expectantly, and Bilbo continued. "And still, amidst it all, I was still a tween, and somehow, Hildy noticed me. One evening he kept me back after the other lads left." Bofur whistled low, and Bilbo felt the arches of his cheeks pinken hotly. "You have a dirty mind, Bofur."

"And you look like you're recalling a lovely tumble," Bofur countered, not untruthfully.

"Gracious, it was nothing so… involved." Bilbo tried his best not to remember how ardently he'd wished it would be. "He just wanted to talk to me." To tell Bilbo he was brave and helpful till his young heart swelled, and to ask his age. Bilbo remembered staring up into Hildy's hazel eyes, swallowing hard before he said, 'Twenty,' hoping fiercely his voice wouldn't crack. "And to kiss me." Twice, firmly, Hildy's hand curved to Bilbo's cheek, Bilbo's fists clutched tightly round Hildy's braces.

Bofur patted his shoulder again. "Well done, Master Baggins."

"Oh, be quiet." Bilbo smiled for as long as he could before the memory of blood on snow forced itself up. "Besides… we didn't have many more before March arrived with another snowfall, making matters worse than ever, for us and for the wolves. Once they attacked in broad daylight." Bofur's fingers pressed gently, bracing Bilbo against the memories. "Hildy was up an oak when they came at us, and I had to waste the acorns as weapons." They still walked through whispering grass, but Bilbo's heart pounded as it had while he'd desperately flung nut after nut, hearing the satisfying thunks against furred flesh, the yips and whines as the wolves shied away, but not far enough, but without giving up. "Hildy shot three wolves before his arrows were spent, but that left him stranded; the rest of us stood in the clearing beyond the trees, but we couldn't run yet, we couldn't just leave him --"

Bilbo choked, and forced himself to breathe. It had been thirty years ago, twice his life and more from then. Bofur slid his arm around Bilbo, squeezing his far shoulder, and they kept steadily walking until, at length, Bilbo swallowed hard and mastered himself. "When the lead wolf passed beneath Hildy's tree he drew his knife and dropped himself upon it." Bilbo winced at the memory, the sickening crunch of bone, Hildy's wild eyes and bloody face as he grappled the twisting wolf and shouted. "He told us to run, and now we ran, all the way back to the Town Hall where our families waited." Bilbo still remembers how his throat had burned with his scream, how Ponto and Adalgrim had dragged him along. "When we could return with reinforcements, torches, proper weapons… all we found were two dead wolves, a bloody knife buried to its hilt, and a trail of blood that vanished beneath the blowing snow."

"I'm sorry," Bofur said, gently brushing a finger along Bilbo's cheek, which was how Bilbo realized he was crying. He scrubbed his face with his sleeve and leaned into Bofur's arm, and for awhile they said nothing more.

The Sun had moved appreciably towards the West before Bilbo found his voice again. "I'm sorry to be so --"

"Thank you," Bofur interrupted. "For telling me this tale of yourself. When our task is done, we'll drink to your Hildy's memory. And to your valor, mighty hobbit."

Bilbo snorted again, and helplessly, gladly returned Bofur's bright-eyed smile. "Well. I think we need a walking-song," he said to shift the mood, thinking of his last memory of that winter, how the hobbits sang defiantly as they remembered all those it had taken; he drew breath to sing, and felt it warm within him. " _Ho, a song by the fire, with a skoal, with a skoal._  
 _Ho, a song by the fire; Pass the pipes with a skoal,_  
 _For the wolf-wind is gnawing at our slumber,_  
 _And the snow drifts deep along the road,_  
 _And the ice gnomes they march in growing numbers,_  
 _And the great white cold walks abroad."_

Ahead, Dori and Nori glanced back, Nori starting to clap time. Bofur, who had been listening, pulled his flute from his pocket, and as he played and Bilbo sang they walked onwards together.

_"But, here by the fire, we defy frost and storm;_   
_Ha, ha we are warm, and we have our heart's desire._   
_For here, we're good fellows, and the beechwood and the bellows;_   
_And the cup is at the lip in the pledge of fellowship."_

 

[Lyrics are modified from "[The Hanover Winter Song](http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/hanover_winter_song.htm)" because that's where the title comes from and because it has always struck me as a hobbity kind of song.]

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:  
> http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/5821.html?replyto=12790717
> 
>  
> 
> _In Unfinished Tales, Gandalf says that the Long Winter nearly wiped out the hobbits by freezing and starvation, and they only survived due to the extraordinary way they pulled together. Bilbo was a mere lad of 20 at the time. It's my headcanon that one of the reasons that he's so solitary and fixated on his little comforts is that he was traumatized by the Long Winter (maybe his friends died?) and never wants to feel that kind of loss and hunger again. I'd love to see a story where the dwarves find out that their burglar is not such a stranger to hardship as they thought._
> 
>  
> 
> (Actually, the Fell Winter -- http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Fell_Winter -- but I still adore the prompt.)


End file.
